


there is love in your body (but you can't get it out)

by macaronidoodles



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Fantasy High
Genre: Character Study, Sibling Bonding, the abernant parents are there too but they don't deserve a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 08:33:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23468470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macaronidoodles/pseuds/macaronidoodles
Summary: Aelwyn and Adaine, through the years.Spoilers for the first part of the Sophomore Year Finale.
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Aelwen Abernant
Comments: 19
Kudos: 92





	there is love in your body (but you can't get it out)

**Author's Note:**

> As a heads up if this seems familiar, @lucifergiggles on Ao3 wrote a very similar fic, which is excellent and you should check it out if you haven't already! Thanks to the lovely folks on Tumblr who encouraged me to keep writing my version anyway, I hope y'all can read and enjoy both!!
> 
> Title from 'Hardest of Hearts' by Florence + the Machine.

Aelwyn Abernant is almost three years old, and baby Adaine is crying. Again.

Their mother sighs, and gestures for one of the unseen servants to see to her. ‘I don’t know what to do about her,’ she says to their father, walking out into the hallway. ‘Aelwyn was such a good baby, she never cried. Adaine never seems to stop.’

‘Ah, well, hopefully she’ll grow out of it,’ she hears her father reply from the next room.

Aelwyn looks up from the blocks she is neatly stacking on the other side of the playroom and over to her sister, frowning. She’s still not quite sure what to think of the new baby. Adaine is small and wrinkly and doesn’t really do anything but cry, louder than she thinks should be possible from something that tiny, but she is kind of cute. She gets up and plods over to the crib, where the baby is still wailing, unsoothed by the invisible servant gently rocking the crib back and forth.

‘Shh,’ she says, to no response. She reaches her hand through the bars and pokes her in the face. ‘Be _quiet_.’

To her surprise, Adaine stops crying, and looks up at her with wide blue eyes.

‘Oh!’ she says, pleased. ‘You did it.’

Adaine, not smiling but still looking at her with those solemn eyes, reaches out and grabs her finger. Aelwyn holds her breath. The little hand is so soft, but the grip is strong and steady.

‘Hi,’ she breathes, and squeezes her hand back.

‘Aelwyn, what are you doing?’ her mother says sharply, poking her head back in the room.

Aelwyn starts, and snatches her hand away. ‘Nothing,’ she says.

Her mother looks at her with narrowed eyes. ‘Adaine needs to learn not to make such a fuss all of the time,’ she says, firmly. ‘So you have to leave her alone, even when she’s crying, alright?’

Aelwyn nods, and without having to be told hurries back to her blocks.

‘Good girl,’ her mother says, and returns to the other room.

Adaine begins to cry again. Aelwyn bites her lip, and stays where she is.

***

Aelwyn Abernant is six years old, and her little sister is annoying her.

‘Come play with me!’ she whines, from the doorway.

‘Go away, Adaine, I’m busy,’ she says, not looking up from her math homework.

 _‘Please_.’ Adaine says, pouting. She has just turned four and is unbearably adorable.

Aelwyn sighs, takes a look at her half-done homework, and gives in. ‘Alright, but not for long. Hide and seek?’

Adaine nods happily, and runs downstairs. Aelwen closes her eyes and counts, then goes after her.

‘Found you!’ she says after a minute, peering under the dining table. ‘That was too easy, Adaine. If we’re going to keep playing, you have to at least pick good places to hide.’

Adaine sticks her tongue out at her and scoots out from under the table. ‘Your turn!’ she says brightly, covering her eyes. ‘One… two…’

Aelwyn runs out of the room. She knows the perfect place, the cupboard in the hallway with handles too high for Adaine to reach. She clambers in quickly, leaving the door open just a crack so she can get out, and settles in amongst the cloaks and coats that are hung up in here.

Adaine sprints out into the hallway after her a few moments later, and then out of Aelwyn’s vision again. Aelwyn waits, listening to the little footsteps patter around and quietly hopes that their parents, both in their studies at the end of the corridor, can’t hear them. The minutes tick by, and she’s beginning to get bored when Adaine hurtles around the corner again, too fast, and runs headfirst into the little table in the hallway.

Aelwyn watches in horror as the table wobbles and the vase on top, a beautiful, delicate elven vase that Father told her used to be displayed in the chamber of the Court of Stars, falls and shatters on the ground. Adaine touches her head, which is dripping blood, and her lip trembles.

Before Aelwyn can move to help her, the door at the end of the hallway flies open and reveals their father. She shrinks back as Angwyn looks down at Adaine, fury in his eyes.

‘Adaine,’ he says, without raising his voice, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

Adaine swallows. ‘I was just -'she says, timidly.

‘Just what? Recklessly destroying ancient artefacts?’ Angywn says, ice cold.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adaine says, voice wobbly. _Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t make this worse,_ Aelwyn wills her, but she can’t stop her sister’s tears from spilling over.

‘I just don’t understand why you can’t be more like your sister,’ Angywn sighs. ‘Aelwyn would know better than to _play_ in the house.’

In the closet, Aelwyn clenches her fist so tightly her knuckles turn white.

‘I…’ Adaine says, and she’s going to tell on her, she’s going to get her in trouble, Aelwyn’s sure, but instead she just repeats, ‘I didn’t - I didn't mean to, I’m sorry,’ between big gasping breaths.

‘Go to your room,’ Angwyn says, seeing there is no more to be gotten out of her, and begins to cast a _Mending_ spell. ‘I'll deal with you later.’

Adaine, tears rolling down her cheeks but not making a sound, gets shakily to her feet. With uncanny precision her eyes focus on Aelwyn, somehow knowing exactly where to find her, and she pauses for a moment, looking at her big sister with those big, pleading eyes. She looks so small and helpless, and she’s _bleeding_ and Aelwyn wants to go and help her, find a plaster, give her a hug –

‘I said,’ Angwyn says, not shouting but louder than before, ‘Go to your _room_ , Adaine.’

Adaine goes. Aelwyn stays hidden, long after her father leaves. 

***

Aelwyn Abernant is eleven, and she is failing to teach her sister magic.

‘Come on, Adaine,’ she sighs, frustrated. ‘This is the easiest cantrip I know. I could do it when I was your age.’

They’re sat on the floor in Adaine’s room, and they’ve been doing this for nearly an hour. Adaine looks at her with thinly veiled fury. ‘I’m _trying_ ,’ she says. ‘Just – give me a minute-’

She holds her hand out in front of her again and says the words for the spell. A transparent, flickering _Mage Hand_ appears in front of her, and she looks up at Aelwyn with a tentative smile.

‘You’re doing it wrong,’ Aelwyn says.

Adaine’s smile fades with her weak _Mage Hand._ ‘Well, maybe you’re explaining it wrong,’ she says, petulantly.

Aelwyn rolls her eyes. ‘Adaine, when you’re at Hudol –’

‘Oooh, Hudol,’ Adaine says in a mocking tone.

Aelwyn ignores her. ‘When you’re at Hudol, they’re not going to have time to explain things over and over. You have to get it right the first time.’

Adaine scowls. ‘I don’t even start at Hudol until next year,’ she says, picking at some loose fluff in the carpet. ‘I don’t see why I have to learn now.’

‘Because,’ Aelwyn says, primly, ‘The Abernants have a reputation to uphold.’

Adaine goes quiet for a moment, still tugging at the thread in the carpet. ‘Haven’t I already –’ she stops, thinking, and then says softly, ‘I don’t think I’m very good at being an Abernant.’

Aelwyn doesn’t know what to say. She’s _right_. Her mother had said as much when she’d asked Aelwyn to take Adaine aside and teach her some basic spells, has been saying as much for as long as she can remember. Adaine is different – not obedient enough, not deferent enough, not clever enough, not in the way their parents want her to be, anyway. And no matter how much Aelwyn tries to help, making a show of her own obedience and deference and cleverness so Adaine will know what to do, how to be, she never seems to get it right.

 _Listen to me_ , she wants to scream, _listen to what I’m saying, just be more like me and then they’ll like you, then things will be easier. You just have to be what they want, and then they’ll leave you alone. It's easy, stop making it hard on yourself._

She doesn’t say any of that. Instead, she looks at Adaine’s hands, anxiously repeating the picking motion over and over again, and says ‘Stop that, you’ll ruin the carpet.’

Adaine stops. ‘I wasn’t –’

‘Just keep practising, and stop being a baby about it,’ Aelwyn interrupts, getting up. ‘A proper Abernant never complains, you know.’

Adaine's hands curl into fists, so filled with rage that she can't speak properly. 'I- you- I _hate_ you!'

‘I’m only trying to help you, Adaine,’ Aelwyn says, and it's the truth, even if Adaine can't see that. She leaves the room, and pretends not to hear Adaine’s breath start to come in short, erratic bursts, pretends her own chest doesn’t feel tight.

***

Aelwyn Abernant is thirteen and she is shooting spells at Adaine for practice whilst their parents watch, laughing at Adaine’s cantrips barely touching her in return, and she is hurting Adaine and not pulling back –

Aelwyn Abernant is fifteen and she is watching from the stairs as her parents berate a pale, shaking Adaine for failing the entrance exam, and when Adaine walks past her with tears running down her cheeks she says something cruel and mocking with a smile –

Aelwyn Abernant is sixteen and she is tricking Adaine into stealing a book for a dragon, saying something cutting so that Adaine tries to punch her, and though she misses Aelwyn half-wishes she hadn’t, thinks perhaps she would deserve it –

Aelwyn Abernant is seventeen – no, eighteen, she reminds herself, eighteen, it’s been months and months she has no memory of – and she is standing in her old bedroom in her old house in her sister’s mind, surrounded by the damning evidence of her failures.

‘If you’re trying to humiliate me, I suppose it’s working,’ she says, hating the tremble in her voice as she says it.

‘I’m not,’ Adaine says, her eyes, wide and perceptive and full of empathy, directly meeting hers. ‘We can make new memories, but these are all the memories I have of you. These are the _best_ memories I have of you. We will live immortal lives.' She gestures to the rooms and the memories, and looks back at Aelwyn. 'Do we want to keep playing these patterns out? _I_ don’t want to.’

Aelwyn looks away from her sister’s gaze. Kindness always seemed to come so easily to Adaine, despite everything, or maybe because of everything, but she doesn’t how to respond to it. Cruelty, hatred, she knows how to handle, knows how to shield herself far away from it, knows how to turn it around and release it back five-fold on everyone around her, but kindness? Love? What does she _do_ with that?

She sees something, out of the window, and Adaine guides her there before she can articulate her curiosity into a question. This is… this is _her_ mind. Her memories, her missing months. And she sees, remembers, what they did to her.

‘They broke you, Aelwyn,’ Adaine says, her voice soft like she’s talking to a child. ‘They broke you.’

Aelwyn looks around the ruins, half-listening to Adaine’s gentle reassurances. Here, at last, is the truth: she is weak, she is a broken thing, she is a liar, she is nothing. And Adaine knows this, Adaine has _seen_ her, at her lowest and weakest and most broken, and she is still here.

‘Will you be my big sister?’ Adaine asks, and her wide, blue eyes will not let her go. ‘I would really love to have you as my big sister.’

She bursts into tears, and the spell breaks.

Aelwyn is back in the forest, weeping uncontrollably. Her father is talking to her but she can only stutter in response, unable to focus on anything other than the sweet, kind words of her baby sister, the sister she has let down time and time again, the sister her father is now reaching for with malicious intent. She stills. He’s going to hurt her, change her, kill her, _Adaine_ –

Aelwyn Abernant reaches out her hand.

The spell fizzles and fades at her _Counterspell,_ and a shield appears in front of Adaine. _Never again_ , she thinks, _you will not hurt her again._ I _will not hurt her again._

Angwyn growls and turns back to her with a vicious expression, casting a _Lightning Bolt._ She gasps as it connects with her chest, pain flaring, and knows that this is a mortal wound.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, to Adaine, to the world, and falls to the ground.

And Aelwyn thinks that is the end of it, but Adaine is there a few hazy seconds later, intervening with fate on her behalf. Too kind, too loving always, and she says as much, in the midst of her addled, weepy apologies.

‘It’s not about deserve,’ Adaine says, softly. ‘But you don’t deserve this.’

Aelwyn cries harder, but tries to help as best she can before she falls unconscious, giving her all that she has left: knowledge, cleverness, and Adaine nods. She’s so clever, too, was always so clever. Aelwyn has to tell her. 

‘I knew,’ she says, ‘Kalvaxus asked, and I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The best diviner. The elven oracle. I knew it was you.’

Her strength is fading. She reaches out and takes Adaine’s hand in hers. Her grip is shaky but Adaine squeezes it back, steady and strong.

‘I love you too,’ she says, and stays by her side, hand in hand, as Aelwyn slips into darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Whew!! Brennan and Siobhan really Did That, huh. I love the Abernant sisters!! Let them share a bunkbed in Mordred Manor and bicker and be happy!
> 
> I don't think that they've ever confirmed the age gap between them but I reckon it's like 2, 2 and a half years? If I fucked it up at any point in this fic just pretend its something about elves aging weird lol.
> 
> Also that Aelwyn in the closet scene was intentionally queer coding! Aelwyn is a lesbian with severe comphet my dudes!! Let her get therapy and a gf!
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr @kristenbeeapples, comments and kudos always appreciated!


End file.
